


Red Envy

by Black_Thorn



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Angst, Be the change you want to see in your life, Body Shaming (kinda), Bullying, Character Study, Duke’s pov, F/F, Honestly just Heathers kind of stuff, Jealousy, Mentions of Suicide, Needed more Duke fics, So I made one, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited, Vomiting, oh boi a lot of pretty tags uh, self hate, what else??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25124671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Thorn/pseuds/Black_Thorn
Summary: She smiles, but it’s not friendly, a row of perfect teeth barely hidden beneath dark red lipstick....“You know, even if I do wish I could just make it through by myself, I do think I’ll need… friends, during these years.”Heather looks at the blonde like she has just sprouted a second head.“Are you asking me to be your friend?”Chandler smirks again.“I’m saying it would be beneficial to you.”
Relationships: Heather Chandler/Heather Duke
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	Red Envy

She almost feels like a normal girl, on the first day of high school. She applies lipstick carefully in front of her mirror, a color not too dark and not too bright. Green, nervous eyes stare back at her from the smooth surface. She doesn’t smile. Not when her own clothes feel so tight against her skin, making her lose her breath. 

Her mother is driving her there- no way her own daughter would be taking the bus.  
“Are you ready darling?” The woman says, briefly knocking on the bathroom door before opening it. She takes her daughter in with a scrupulous look. “Honey, not that shirt. You know it makes you look fat. At least put a jacket on.”  
Heather feels her stomach drop, and her eyes flicker back to the mirror. She’s right, she thinks. She quickly changes shirt, choosing a looser, black one, careful not to ruin her makeup, before putting on a forest green blazer. 

Her mother smiles. “Shall we go? We don’t want you to be late on your first day, do we?”

“No.”

There is nervousness pooling in her stomach, as she drums her fingers on the leather of the car, dark polish catching the lights.  
Her mother is staring at the road, humming at the tune of the radio. Heather lets her eyes wander back to the car window, the cement moving fast beneath them. She’s scared. This will be a new place, a new experience with new people. She really doesn’t want this to go like middle school went. She can still hear the sharp laughter in her ears, the snide comments.  
She feels her throat burn. 

“Here we are!” Her mother’s singsong voice snaps her back to the present, and Heather swallows. The woman doesn’t notice her daughter’s distaste, and Heather doubts she would care anyways. She never does.  
She look at the school’s entrance, a few kids about her age turning their heads to look at the expensive car. She wants to drop lower, and ask her mother to drive away.

“Heather?”

She sighs. There is no escaping this.  
“I’m going then. Bye.”  
“Sure sweetie, I’ll send Harnold to pick you up later.”  
Harnold. The family driver. Honestly, Heather is surprised her mother even found the time in her busy schedule of hairstyling and shopping with friends to accompany her that morning.  
“Sure.” The girl answers as she gets off the car, closing the door behind her.

“Have a good day!” Her mother says. She blows her a kiss, closes the window and drives away, followed by the eyes of curious students. Heather hunches up her shoulders to her ears, and starts walking into the building.

It’s a relief and an hindrance, not seeing any known faces between the mass of boys and girls going by their way in the hallways. The younger ones seem to be just as at a loss as her, trying not to make a mistake that could scar their reputation forever in that first day.  
She clenches her fists around the backpack’s handles, letting her nails sink in the soft material. She knows it’s going to be a long day. 

She finds her first classroom, and sits in the far corner, taking her books out. The chemistry teacher barely looks at her from over the rim of her glasses, before going back to read her notes.  
She’s sitting next to a kid with blonde, tousled hair, who is chewing on a gum.  
“Hey.” He tells her with a smirk. Heather feels herself freeze on the spot.  
‘Breathe‘ she has to remind herself ‘you’re different now. He’s just being friendly.‘

“Hi.” She replies, trying not to sound as miserable as she feels. Thankfully, another boy sits at his side, and he must know him already, because his attention is immediately on him, the girl dressed in green already forgotten.  
Good. She thinks. It’s good not to be noticed.

There is only one empty spot left in the whole classroom, right in front of her. The teacher must notice, because she curls her nose, and she is about to say something, when the door opens once again.  
The girl that comes in, looks like the farthest thing from someone that is plenty of minutes late. To the contrary, she carries herself ike she has all the time in the world. She keeps her head held high, blonde, luscious hair bobbing over her shoulders each step she takes.  
She doesn’t acknowledge the teacher, she walks to the empty desk as if on a runway, and sits down in a graceful motion.  
Heather knows the kind of girl she is, she has dealt with many in her previous years.  
She can already feel it, hear it.  
Loser  
Fat ass  
Aren’t you an elephant?

‘No no no’ Heather thinks ‘you are prettier now. You have lost lots of weight. You-‘  
Her train of thoughts stops when she notices icy blue eyes are piercing into her own.  
“I asked,” the girl says with the tone of someone that is already done with her, “if you have a pencil to give me.” 

Heather scrambles on her seat, nearly knocking her books off the desk in the haste of getting what the other has asked for. She grabs a blue pen, and hands it to her with a nervous smile. Their fingers brush when the other takes it.

The girl doesn’t thank her, she merely grabs it and turns around, not sparing Heather another glance. ‘That’s good. That’s good.‘  
God, she already feels like crying over something so small. She’s so pathetic.

The teacher begins the roll call, going one name at a time. Heather doesn’t try to memorize any, she just waits for her own to be called.  
“Heather Chandler?”

She bites her lip when she’s about to lift her arm at the wrong time, and she can feel her blood run cold when it’s the girl in front of her that answers instead.  
Her name is Heather.  
It’s strange in an irrational way, that someone called like her could be… so different, so distant from herself.

Heather Duke got in the school like she wanted to run from it, Heather Chandler got in as if she owned the place and everyone in it. 

“Heather Duke?”

“Here.” She replies, her voice dying in her throat when the other Heather turns her way for the second time that day. She smiles, but it’s not friendly, a row of perfect teeth barely hidden beneath dark red lipstick.  
Heather swallows, and casts her eyes downwards. 

She spends the day like that, making herself as small as she can, as unnoticeable as she can. Because if no one notices her, no one targets her. No one laughs at her. But she does watch Heather Chandler, a magnet in a room full of iron pawns.

No matter the short amount of time spent with that class, everyone already knows who’s at the lead.  
Heather, much like everyone else, can’t stop looking at her. Admiring her. She’s a star, far and beautiful like the sun. And something tells her, she’s just as unapproachable.

That’s why she’s so surprised when she approaches her.

It’s right after lunch, when Heather has eaten too much out of nervousness, way too much. So she empties it all into a bathroom stall, the food and the bundle of fear and annoyance that has not left her organism since the night before. She feels the cold ceramic beneath her palms as she makes herself throw up. When she opens the door, she freezes in place, noticing the girl that is leaning against a sink, watching her with a raised brow and a smirk.

Suddenly she feels the urge to run, because, right now, Heather Chandler is looking very much like a predator who has found its prey.  
Her throat is still burning, an horrible but familiar taste covering her tongue. 

“You didn’t look that ill in class.”

Duke lowers her gaze to the tile floor. Of all the people that could find her in there, it had to be her.  
“I wasn’t.” She admits, going to wash her hands, and possibly her teeth, at the sink. A hand grasps her wrist, making her still once again, shivering beneath sharp, mocking eyes.  
“What is it, bulimia?” She asks. She’s nowhere near concerned, or even pitiful. But she doesn’t seem disgusted either, so, Heather guesses, it could be worse.

“Why do you care?”  
She regrets her snappy remark the second blue eyes flash, smirk gone as if it had never been there in the first place.  
“Sorry. Yes, bulimia.” She hurries to reply, trying to fix whatever she could of the damage she had already created. She doesn’t know her, but Heather Chandler doesn’t strike her like the kind of person you want to have as an enemy. 

“Can I…?” She asks, then, gesturing at the small toothbrush in her hand. Chandler shrugs, finally letting her wrist go. There is blissful silence for a few seconds, as water runs against ceramic and the taste of fresh mint slowly replaces the one of puke in her mouth. 

“Everyone here seems like an idiot.” Chandler says after a bit. She’s looking at her own reflection disinterestedly. Heather still has toothpaste in her mouth, so she spits it out before replying: “Can’t expect much else from high schoolers.”  
At least they seem to have one thing in common, other than their name. Distaste for others. 

Chandler snorts, curling her mouth and looking upwards as if considering that response in her mind. “I guess.”  
Duke smiles hesitantly.  
Chandler is wearing a lot of red, she notices. From her blazer to her hair tie. It suits her, but Heather doubts there is a color that wouldn’t.  
She feels a small, but still noticeable, pang at her chest at that consideration. It’s an emotion that has been nagging at her from the second she saw the girl walk in the classroom.

“You know, even if I do wish I could just make it through by myself, I do think I’ll need… friends, during these years.”  
Heather looks at the blonde like she has just sprouted a second head.  
“Are you asking me to be your friend?”  
Chandler smirks again.  
“I’m saying it would be beneficial to you.”

Duke nods a couple of times, trying not to look too enthusiastic, too desperate. “Sure.” She says.  
Heather Chandler grabs her hand, her skin is silky and pale, and her heart skips a beat. “Let’s go, then.”

She comes home feeling lighter than she has been in a while. Her father isn’t there, yet, and her mother is in her rooms. She throws in the trash the food on her plate and goes to her bedroom.  
She glances at the mirror there, trying to put herself into Chandler’s place, to see what she had seen to ask her to be friends. She doesn’t know.  
She thinks of blue eyes and red lips and perfect hair, and she feels that pang again. It’s… not a new emotion, but it has never been this strong before. It gnaws at her already, but she tries to give it no mind.

She has a friend now, and that friend happens to be Heather Chandler.  
Maybe highschool won’t be such a disaster anymore. Maybe, things will start going her way, for once.  
She sleeps, dreaming of red scrunchies.

It has always felt as if the world was one huge stage, and the people in it the actors. You are born with a part, and unless the script says so, you don’t change it.  
Duke is ready to embrace this new character, this new her that she has always strived for. 

Even only walking at Chandler’s side, makes her feel different from her everyday life. The girl is tall and proud, she holds her chin high, looks down on anyone that dares to cross her path. At first, Duke is intimidated. But then Chandler pinches her arm, whispering hotly in her ear: “pull yourself together,”, and Duke is walking to her right, no longer casting her gaze on the ground.

It’s strange, at first, but not as unwelcome as she thought it would be. People look at her, but their probing eyes feel so different from one year ago- where there was laughter, condescence, there is just quiet curiosity and a bit of awe.  
Scratch that, it doesn’t feel unwelcome, it feels good. 

“You know what we need to up our position in the food chain?”  
Heather asks her one day at their table, slicing a piece of steak with her knife. Duke doesn’t know, she has never really- well not cared, exactly. It just has always felt like something that wasn’t for her, that she wasn’t worthy of even thinking about. But now?

“What?” She asks, and she can already feel herself smiling at the corner of her lips. It must be contagious, because now Chandler is smirking conspiringly as well. 

“We need to affiliate with someone older in our school.” She says, placing the bite into her mouth. Duke looks around. She’s more confident now, sure, but the older students are still somewhat intimidating. It feels like they are from another world entirely, compared to the kids of the first year. She guesses that’s exactly why Heather is planning to befriend one.

“We’ll crash one of their parties.”

“What?” 

Chandler raises a perfect brow. “Is that a problem?”  
“No, of course not, just… how?”  
“Oh, Heather.” She replies, as if talking to a small, dumb child. “We are two attractive girls. Of course they’ll let us in.”

Attractive. It’s new for Heather to be given such a positive adjective. It makes warmth bloom on her cheeks, and she takes a bite from one of the chips on her tray.  
“I’ll follow you, then.”

She’s getting used to that devious smile, sharp and full of promises.  
“Good.”

Her dress is an emerald green, a color that suits her, according to Chandler. It’s revealing, and tight against her skin. She has never worn something quite like this. Heather looks at her profile in the mirror, gazing at her stomach with a critical eye. Does it show? She takes in a deep breath and it vanishes completely. She wishes she didn’t have to breathe.

She has already sent a text to her mother, saying she would be sleeping at a friend’s house. That wasn’t even a lie, technically.  
It beeps only now with a reply: “have fun!”

She sighs.

Harnold drives her to Heather’s house, and the girl gets in, sitting next to her. She smells good, of a strong perfume. Duke realizes she hasn’t put on any herself, and suddenly feels even more self conscious. She begins tugging at the corner of her dress, and Chandler has to put a hand on hers.  
“Stop.”  
Heather stops.

The house Harnold drops them at is loud, full of people, with music escaping the walls and erupting in the courtyard. There is a pool as well- someone dives into it, making a big enough splash for the two girls to see even in the dark.  
“Good.” Heather says, taking the lead as always and getting off the vehicle, not giving the driver a second glance. Duke hurries to follow.

They both stop when close enough to the entrance. Duke wonders if Chandler is nervous as well, when she hesitates to take in a deep breath. A boy sees them and howls, “come in ladies!”  
Duke subconsciously moves closer to her friend, looking for comfort in her presence. Chandler plasters a smile on her face, but it’s different from the ones she’s used to, it doesn’t reach her cold eyes.

Heather grabs her hand. They go in together.

It’s even more chaotic inside, there is smoke and bodies moving continuously, the smell of tobacco and sweat is disgusting at first. Chandler lets the grip go, and for a second, Duke feels lost.  
“Hey girls!” She feels a strong arm go limp against her shoulder. Both her and Chandler are being kept on place by the same person, a guy with a bit of beard and a half unbuttoned shirt. “Why don’t ya have something to drink?”

Before they can even answer, they are brought to a table full of bottles scattered all over it. Chandler, ever the courageous, takes a paper cup and pours a bit of a clear liquid in it.

“Have you ever tried it?”  
Duke asks, unsure.

“Shut up Heather!” The girl hisses between her teeth, barely loud enough to be heard over the music “they can’t know we shouldn’t be here.”  
Duke shuts her mouth, and takes the cup Chandler hands her. There is not much inside it, it’s not even half full.  
She watches as Heather swallows down the liquid in a single gulp, throwing her head back. There is a few cheers from all around them, as a trickle of vodka runs down her cheek, and she wipes it with her wrist.

“Your turn,” Heather says, gently pushing the cup to her friend’s lips. Duke doesn’t think about it- because nothing good has ever come out of that. So she just copies her, gulping it down. It’s sweet, it tastes like peach, and it burns her throat in its descent, and soon she feels like her whole chest is on fire. Unlike Chandler, she doesn’t finish it all, but coughs a bit of it out of the glass.  
Heather and other strangers laugh, but it’s not malicious.

Her friend grabs her hand again, anchoring her, and soon they are both dancing. 

Chandler was right, it does work. All those in their year soon know the couple of friends went to the party that a seventeen years old student had thrown. They soon become more known, no longer just the two pretty girls that walk the hallway, but Heather and Heather. 

Of course, what the two don’t talk about is the way they had both felt sick the day after, how they had to run away because a boy was being too touchy for both of their tastes, and wouldn’t stop when asked.  
They don’t talk about coming back to Chandler’s house as a stumbling mess, and Duke having a mental breakdown, while for once, it was Chandler that emptied her stomach in the sink. 

To Chandler, it is still a success. 

It’s in their second year of high school, that they meet McNamara. She comes from another place, but immediately joins the cheerleaders’ team. Heather thinks she would be a great addition to their clique.

Duke isn’t happy about her decision, at first. “Why not just stay the two of us?” She asks, looking at the honey blonde girl at the cheerleaders’ table with distaste. Chandler rolls her eyes. “Three is better than two, trust me. She is rich, already popular, and seems fairly naïve, easy to manipulate. It will be a piece of cake.”  
‘Is that what you thought of me when you first saw me?‘  
Duke wonders, but she doesn’t say it aloud. She’s too scared of the response.

So Heather McNamara joins their small, exclusive circle. Chandler was right- when isn’t she?  
The girl is sweet and naïve, to the point of diabetes, Duke muses. But people like her, Chandler wants her in the team, so Duke leaves her bitterness for another moment.  
It’s Heather, Heather and Heather now.

Theirs becomes a small kingdom. Chandler is, quite obviously, the queen. She runs things, she decides who’s worth something at their school, and who isn’t. McNamara is the sweet face, the one that mingles with the crowd, and puts on a pretty facade.  
And Duke? Duke is the executioner.  
She’s the one whose words send people away crying, the one that you don’t piss off and get away with.  
When she becomes leader of the school’s magazine, she’s able to end someone’s reputation with a few well placed words on paper.  
Spite is easy.

And no matter how everyone claims they hate them. She knows they are needed, as well, if not more so. They become the light of the school, something to aspire to, something that pierces the bleak cloud of dullness that is teenage years.  
Why not give the people hope? Why not show them icons? What even was that dirty, senseless school before them? 

She starts to understand them, those that bullied her, back in middle school. Because, why not? The power of being better, above, is intoxicating. And inferior people shouldn’t dare to raise their heads from the dirt when they have done nothing to deserve it.

They’re in their third year when she first, finally? Kisses her. Her lips taste of gin, a type of alcohol that Duke had always found too bitter to be likeable. The kiss is drunk, sloppy, cheered on by hormonal teenagers, but she doesn’t care, she finds herself chasing whatever she can get. When they draw back, Chandler licks her lips and God, Duke is thankful she’s sitting because she knows her legs would give out from under her. 

And then bliss turns into dawning horror when the next morning she’s very much sober and still very, very much attached to that kiss. How it felt. How it made her feel.  
Heather doesn’t want to think about it, but then she sees Chandler and how beautiful she is and- fuck.

She loses her virginity to a random boy in the football team, whose name she barely remembers at all. He pants in her ear and trusts into her, and it’s nowhere near to what Chandler had made her feel. She realizes she’s thinking about her and sinks her nails into his back.  
She barely looks at him when they are done.  
“Going already?” He asks, as Heather starts to put her clothes back on, but she doesn’t answer, feeling even emptier than before.

“It was great,” she lies with a smile at McNamara’s house. The place is big and lush, a reflection of her family’s impressive wealth. “though I don’t think he had much experience, either.”  
They are in the blonde girl’s bedroom, on a mattress that is big enough to host them all three. McNamara giggles, one hand perched beneath her chin. “Wow, I can’t believe you were the first one to, you know, go all the way!”  
Heather looks at Chandler, but the girl seems to be barely listening while she applies red polish on her nails.

“I mean, it’s not that big of a deal.“

“But how-“

“Heather is a slut, I think I get it, can we talk about a more interesting topic now?”

Finally, Chandler speaks. Her voice has gotten slightly deeper in those few years of time, but it stays melodious all the same. Duke crosses her arms in front of her chest.  
“What do you mean with slut? You were the one that suggested getting laid as soon as possible.”

“With someone that matters.” The blonde points out, waving the small brush in the air. Luckily for McNamara’s sheets, not even a red drop falls down.  
“Not with the first boy that tries to get into your pants. That’s just desperate, Heather.”

Duke can feel her eyes sting at the remark, but she blinks the tears back with a frown. McNamara is silent, she always is when Chandler talks.  
“Sorry, Heather.” She doesn’t even know why she’s apologizing, but she blurts out the words nonetheless. The other one shrugs.

Duke gets a jeep, her sixteenth birthday present that she chose for herself. It’s of a dark grey color, with a powerful engine that purrs when she brings it to life. Then Chandler gets a fiery red porsche, and obviously her jeep is nowhere near its level.  
That pang in Heather’s chest has a name, and has had it for a while: envy.  
It becomes a strange, nauseating push and pull of wanting her and wanting to be her. She honestly doesn’t know which sentiment is worse.

Heather starts failing her classes, and she has to ask another, more studious girl to do the work for her. After all, we don’t want these compromising pictures to accidentally be published in the school paper, do we?

She’s at the top of the world, high enough to know the fall would be tremendous.

Chandler comes to knock at her door once, while a storm is raging. When Heather opens up, she finds the girl soaked to the bone, mascara is running down her cheeks. She has never seen her look so disheveled, and by how red her eyes are, Heather realizes it’s not just rain sliding over her skin. It’s almost… thrilling, really, to see the school queen so human, so down to Earth,with them mere mortals.

The girl must read something she doesn’t like in Duke’s expression, because she sniffs and says: “I knew I shouldn’t have come to you.”  
Her voice is rough, she can barely hear it over the sound of water crashing on the ground. Duke shakes her head and grabs her friend’s arm. “Come in.”

She gives her dry clothes before leading her into her own room, retrieving an hairdryer from the bathroom while the other girl gets changed. She finds Chandler sitting on her bed, hair dripping on the white sheets. At least she has changed.

“What happened?” She asks while plugging the hair dryer in. Chandler rolls her eyes.  
“What, so you can write about it in the Yearbook?”

Duke doesn’t answer, she just turns on the dryer and runs her fingers through wet locks. The other lets her, even occasionally leaning into the touch.  
Heather has always had pretty hair, of a light gold shade, though it’s darker now that it’s wet. More similar to her own, in a way.  
What if she kept the dryer going for too long, and burned it? What if, now that the other is turned and unaware, she took a pair of scissors and cut it?

It takes a while- the girl’s hair is long, after all- but she manages to dry it all. Chandler sighs in front of her, letting her forehead bump against her own knees.  
“Life sucks.”  
She doesn’t know what has triggered this line of thoughts, but it doesn’t take much for Duke to agree with a small nod. Then she realizes Chandler can’t see her like this, and settles for a simple: ”tell me about it.”

Heather lifts her head. Her eyes are still red- it makes the blue stand out even more than usual. Her palm is soft when she cups Heather’s cheek, and now she can feel her heart thudding against her chest.  
“I need a distraction.” That’s all the warning she gets, before Chandler leans in and kisses her. 

There is no taste of alcohol this time, not even a hint of lipgloss. It’s just soft skin. Duke’s eyes widen, and she hesitates at first, because both of them are sober and there is no guy to impress, is there?  
But then Heather nibbles her lower lip stubbornly, and really, if she has never disagreed with her before, now is not the time to start.  
So she closes her eyes and feels her heart that threatens to beat its way out of her chest, because Heather Chandler is kissing her on her own bed.

She’s a good kisser. Figures.  
She has never kissed a different girl from her, and never got further than a make out session during a round of spin the bottle. It still feels somewhat natural, though, to touch and feel her, to hear her gasp lightly when she pushes forward. It’s empowering, to know she’s having an effect on the girl.  
Suddenly she feels the need to control, to dominate. To be the one in charge, for once, to dictate the rules. So she pushes the girl down, against the mattress, grabbing the hair that a few minutes before she had thought of burning and cutting. Heather answers in kind, beneath her, her mouth becomes voracious, her hands cup the back of Duke’s neck. 

They break apart, breathing heavily. Under her, Chandler is blushing a flattering pink, and her pupils are dilated in a way that makes Heather want her like she has never before.  
“How is this for a distraction?”  
She whispers, even if no one is home, emerald eyes igniting under black lashes.  
“Shut up.”  
It’s a soft, almost desperate order. Chandler drags her down with her.

They don’t talk about it- what even is there to talk about?  
They just come to an unspoken agreement: no one has to know. They never talk about anything that matters, anyways.  
They become each other’s dirty secret, a secret not even McNamara is allowed into. 

When in school, everything is as it always was. People now whisper their names in amazement, jealousy or want.  
They carry themselves like royalty.  
And then they meet up behind closed doors, and Duke often wants to bite, scratch, ruin that perfect girl until she’s unrecognizable. And then Chandler is between her legs or kissing her lips, and she forgets all about that. About the fact that she wants to tear her down down down because Heather is bringing her up up up. Could this get anymore fucked up?

The answer comes in a horribly dressed nobody.  
Heather doesn’t worry at first. She’s just another McNamara, she thinks.  
Someone naïve and mouldable that Chandler will just use for her own objectives.  
Except this one is not even a Heather, she’s a Veronica. And Veronica is as different as her name suggests. 

Heather is used to envy. It’s an old friend that that has been accompanying her for what feels like forever, and has taken a red taint. It always flows in her veins and boils at the first chance it gets.  
What she isn’t used to is jealousy. 

Because since Veronica is with their group, Heather barely calls her anymore. Because Heather sits next to Veronica when they are on McNamara’s bed doing their nails. Because Duke opens Chandler’s locker to get her books, and finds only pictures of Veronica and Chandler attached to the door, and so she scraps her nails against metal until the people around her cover their ears and hiss like the snakes they are.

She hates them all anyways. Chandler, for being this perfect persona that they both know is just a facade. For being what her mother wants Duke to be, what she wants to be, what she wants. McNamara, for being an actual decent person deep down, for being so stupid as to think she’s worth anything more than the clothes she puts on. And Sawyer… God, Duke wants to take that moralism and shove it down her throat. 

And then, like a fallen angel, Jason Dean comes into the scene, and, for some unfathomable reason, Veronica falls head over heels for the guy.  
Heather wants to laugh at her face, when Chandler tightens her hands into fists and she works her jaw at the sight of the two.  
How does it feel?  
She wants to ask  
How does it feel not to get what you want?

When Chandler bites her throat and makes her moan, Duke considers it as a victory. But then the girl whispers Veronica against her skin and Heather all but pushes her off the bed with inhuman effort.  
It’s the first time she shows batlant fury at Chandler, and her blood is singing. 

The girl looks almost apologetic in the way her eyes lower for a fraction of a second. Then they go back to shimmering ice, and she states “We should end this.”

The queen has spoken, and you don’t say no to the queen. So Duke watches her go.

Heather Chandler is dead. She hears it on the radio, first, and she’s way too shocked to react.  
Suicide. Chandler committed suicide.  
Heather laughs. It bubbles from deep into her, and explodes in a cacophony of sounds. Look, at the end of the day, who was the weak one? Who left who behind, after all?  
What an anticlimactic ending.

She grabs that red scrunchie, in Heather’s old locker, and ties it to her own dark hair.  
Who needs Heather Chandler anymore?

Only at night, when she wakes up sweaty and tormented, having dreamt of red, she finally lets herself cry.


End file.
